Very drippy game, make it downloadable for windows and mac pls or add a new map of like the whole world with villages and plantations in every continent
A deeply disturbing, controversial, and painful game for me to experience. For context, I'm a white man living in America.
On one hand, this very accurately conveys and embodies the intellectual / emotional disconnection that I have often felt my body gravitate towards when approaching the topic of the slave trade. It can only be a comfortable intellectual topic, if the humans involved are reduced to numbers and economics, and the context is that this is purely historic and academic. I feel disgust, and I found myself cringing periodically, as I observed this sensation in myself, as brought out by the game.
The simple interaction of clicking green buttons until the victory condition is won, gives it a child like quality, which is all the more disturbing to feel. Notifications such as "New plantation unlocked" are reminiscent of cute "click everything" mobile games, which along with the bright color scheme and simplistic graphics further intensifies the incongruity of the experience.
In putting me in the role of someone managing the slave trade in such a simplistic game, I'm confronted very directly with the contradiction of realizing the sickening aspect of this. I feel like I'm being asked to participate in a mass atrocity in a context that is more like a business management simulation than a holocaust simulator. The game is using the same techniques that produce the regular sense of reward that you get from playing any game with a fixed set of rules, a score, and a bit of challenge.
To continue to play is to enjoy playing. It is painful to experience the small enjoyment of such a clicky game while simultaneously recognizing cost to human life and dignity that is the topic of this game.
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this - I had hoped that a game on this topic existed, since I had indeed searched "slavery" in search of such a thing. The fact that it is presented in such a gamey way, with no sense of consciousness, with no effort to present anything beyond the business arrangement - just feels wrong.
It's just a game, yes, and perhaps if this is introduced in the context of a larger discussion on how the history of slavery as the basis for American life has become minimized as a historical curiosity, as a game-able economic system, then this could be an effective tool for allowing white Americans to reflect on the degree to which this mentality lives inside our bodies.
However, without any of that context, it's far more likely someone attracted to this game leaves without much learned - the idea that slavery doesn't have much to do with their current life will remain.
Perhaps at the end there is some text that contextualizes what the player just went through - whatever is there, I won't see it.. I can't in good conscious continue to play, it is gross to experience myself playing this game.
This is thought provoking though - putting a white person with a settler-colonial experience of America in a perspective where they have to be confronted with something that makes them uncomfortable could be a very useful tool, if used for that person to become accustomed to experiencing the presence of that feeling in their body, and therefore more able to make space for racial stressors. I am interested in exploring this as a concept in my own games.
Looking forward to playing your next entry, and I hope if you reflect on any of the above, you'll continue the conversation with me. Thanks!
Hello ! Sorry for the delay of my answer. Note, I've to say I'm very uncomfortable to talk about those subjects in another language than my native one (I'm french), I'll try but I'm always afraid to write things different than what I think. That's also why I took time to answer.
First of all, a big thank you to you, your comment is very interesting and I was really happy to see a detailed description of you thoughts.
For context, I'm a white men living in France. Colonization was a big part of our history, and still is. We still have territories on each continent (we call those "Outre-mer") and we still have a (very) big influence on our old colonies (The franc CFA for example is a money used in some Africa country but controlled by France, our army is very present in Africa and defend all operations to get raw materials (especially uranium for our nuclear plant), diplomatically or military, we back dictator and from memory, sometimes we participate to overthrow democratically elected government). In France, I guess the general opinion is that Colonization was bad (that's obvious it was) and it's over (I consider it's not because what I said just before), but we have some reactionary people (that are very noisy and have plenty of time to expose their crappy point of view on TV, radio and newspapers) that are nostalgic of the colonization. For example, like 15 years ago, a president wanted to teach in elementary school the "positive aspect of colonization", you know, we built roads and schools (Note, in fact, schools was only for colonists, not for colonized people and roads was built only to export goods to the mainland France).
I made this game few years ago during a game jam, the LudumDare. The theme was "You are the monster". I had this idea of playing someone handling slave trade. Not all heroes wear capes, not all monsters are tall beasts that eat children ;-). What I like in the game (at least what I tried to do) is you see the distance between what you do and what happens. I mean, you only buy stuff, sell stuff, make some investments. Those concepts are classics and can apply to anything, like an industry of french fries. But as you know history, you know you're organizing violence and pain. That's the concept of banality of evil. Here, you only do what society encourage you to do, and, in a capitalist society (I admit, it's always hard to talk about capitalist society before 1700-1800, but concepts were already here : sacralization of private property, society organized in class, ...) you're encouraged to maximize your profit, no matter what you do for that. It represents in the game the reward you're talking of :-). Note that it's also a criticism about big management structure and hierarchy, because you have people giving orders (in the game, the player) and people following orders (working in boats, in plantations, ...) but nobody has the big picture and can really understand what happens (and people who can are too far away from what happens to give a shit about it).
It's very interesting you wanted to play game about slavery, I was asking myself how you may have discover the game when I saw I had a comment (almost nobody played on Itch.io, I posted the game on Newgrounds and Kongregate, there were more players).
Note, I don't really like educational games and I don't wanted to be moralist, I mean, I wanted to be "raw", not say player what to think, etc... But what I hope is some people will be curious by playing, ask themselves some questions about what happens in the game and search what is "Triangular Trade" for example, which can lead to good thinking.
That's very awesome you made a very complete and interesting comment about what you felt while playing, thank you again !
I released Slavery Triangular Trade few years ago, now I'm freelance and work on developing indie games with a friend, we are Spirkop, here is our Twitter : https://twitter.com/SpirkopGames/ . We released 2 small games on web platforms (Kongregate, Armorgames), but they don't have any strong politics stuff in them like this game. Of course, we hope we'll able to include strong political content in our next games, but now we focus on being able to live from game development. Our next game will be an electric grid management game. We'll probably add little moral choices, but still nothing strong. Have a nice day !
Wow thanks for this thorough response! I think the context of it being a game made for a "You are the monster" game jam is super important for everyone experiencing this game, along with your analysis on colonization. And I think the mentality of "Not all heroes wear capes, not all monsters are tall beasts that eat children" is true and it is a worthy challenge to use as a basis for a game.
I see that the comments sections on kongregate and newgrounds seem oblivious to this intent (with some noticeable eagerness to shift the blame to African people) - but this is truly territory that games have not yet had many real successes in exploring so I appreciate your attempt, and I am wondering about ways this approach could be tweaked to have players experience this "not all monsters are beasts" theme.
I agree that any approach that comes off as "moralizing" or "educational" will be ineffective, but I'd say that is more a matter of making the experience feel whole rather than contrived.. All games have values and lessons that the player learns intuitively through playing them, although sometimes those values are very simple, like "everyone is out to kill you, and you need speed and quick reactions to survive." To tackle a more nuanced topic like this one requires a different approach.
I suspect one method would be a game where you are involved in intercontinental trade, and you start out with more simple forms of cargo, but are placed in a position where there is a demand for human beings. In such a case, the player would get to feel that point where they have to deal with the fact that the skills they have honed for a simple business purpose, is becoming more intertwined with moral considerations.
Or, like Papers Please, you play a role that is way more administrative - like tracking incoming and outgoing products. What I love about that game is in the act of playing it you get to exercise moral agency, but it's always at some kind of cost. Morality in the construct of larger forces at play, of the watchful eye of a fascist and institution.
What is great about that, is it enables the player to maintain their personal morality, while taking the moral considerations seriously.
This makes me want to take some time and document games that successfully approach morality without a contrived, "moralizing" approach... I'm sure it's a fairly short list.
Thanks for the notes on how France views colonization - particularly the comment on how there have been movements to highlight the "positive aspect of colonization" - that hit me deeply, as even if it goes unspoken, I feel like that mentality is very much alive in America. Being able to effectively break through the defensiveness around racial shame, is the only way to heal it. This is something I hope video games can play a role with.. We'll see if that ever pans out!
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good days
wow such an good game, can u make the time longer so it's not 50/60 years this I 20 to 30 mins in real life, can u make it longer please
just like the old days.... i love it
Very drippy game, make it downloadable for windows and mac pls or add a new map of like the whole world with villages and plantations in every continent
Very nice game. Please make new games
Hello ! Thanks for your comment, fun timing because I just released my first game on Steam :-) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1241710/Energy_Island_Corp/
I'll try to release it on Itch in the near future.
A deeply disturbing, controversial, and painful game for me to experience. For context, I'm a white man living in America.
On one hand, this very accurately conveys and embodies the intellectual / emotional disconnection that I have often felt my body gravitate towards when approaching the topic of the slave trade. It can only be a comfortable intellectual topic, if the humans involved are reduced to numbers and economics, and the context is that this is purely historic and academic. I feel disgust, and I found myself cringing periodically, as I observed this sensation in myself, as brought out by the game.
The simple interaction of clicking green buttons until the victory condition is won, gives it a child like quality, which is all the more disturbing to feel. Notifications such as "New plantation unlocked" are reminiscent of cute "click everything" mobile games, which along with the bright color scheme and simplistic graphics further intensifies the incongruity of the experience.
In putting me in the role of someone managing the slave trade in such a simplistic game, I'm confronted very directly with the contradiction of realizing the sickening aspect of this. I feel like I'm being asked to participate in a mass atrocity in a context that is more like a business management simulation than a holocaust simulator. The game is using the same techniques that produce the regular sense of reward that you get from playing any game with a fixed set of rules, a score, and a bit of challenge.
To continue to play is to enjoy playing. It is painful to experience the small enjoyment of such a clicky game while simultaneously recognizing cost to human life and dignity that is the topic of this game.
I wasn't sure what to expect going into this - I had hoped that a game on this topic existed, since I had indeed searched "slavery" in search of such a thing. The fact that it is presented in such a gamey way, with no sense of consciousness, with no effort to present anything beyond the business arrangement - just feels wrong.
It's just a game, yes, and perhaps if this is introduced in the context of a larger discussion on how the history of slavery as the basis for American life has become minimized as a historical curiosity, as a game-able economic system, then this could be an effective tool for allowing white Americans to reflect on the degree to which this mentality lives inside our bodies.
However, without any of that context, it's far more likely someone attracted to this game leaves without much learned - the idea that slavery doesn't have much to do with their current life will remain.
Perhaps at the end there is some text that contextualizes what the player just went through - whatever is there, I won't see it.. I can't in good conscious continue to play, it is gross to experience myself playing this game.
This is thought provoking though - putting a white person with a settler-colonial experience of America in a perspective where they have to be confronted with something that makes them uncomfortable could be a very useful tool, if used for that person to become accustomed to experiencing the presence of that feeling in their body, and therefore more able to make space for racial stressors. I am interested in exploring this as a concept in my own games.
Looking forward to playing your next entry, and I hope if you reflect on any of the above, you'll continue the conversation with me. Thanks!
Hello !
Sorry for the delay of my answer. Note, I've to say I'm very uncomfortable to talk about those subjects in another language than my native one (I'm french), I'll try but I'm always afraid to write things different than what I think. That's also why I took time to answer.
First of all, a big thank you to you, your comment is very interesting and I was really happy to see a detailed description of you thoughts.
For context, I'm a white men living in France. Colonization was a big part of our history, and still is. We still have territories on each continent (we call those "Outre-mer") and we still have a (very) big influence on our old colonies (The franc CFA for example is a money used in some Africa country but controlled by France, our army is very present in Africa and defend all operations to get raw materials (especially uranium for our nuclear plant), diplomatically or military, we back dictator and from memory, sometimes we participate to overthrow democratically elected government). In France, I guess the general opinion is that Colonization was bad (that's obvious it was) and it's over (I consider it's not because what I said just before), but we have some reactionary people (that are very noisy and have plenty of time to expose their crappy point of view on TV, radio and newspapers) that are nostalgic of the colonization. For example, like 15 years ago, a president wanted to teach in elementary school the "positive aspect of colonization", you know, we built roads and schools (Note, in fact, schools was only for colonists, not for colonized people and roads was built only to export goods to the mainland France).
I made this game few years ago during a game jam, the LudumDare. The theme was "You are the monster". I had this idea of playing someone handling slave trade. Not all heroes wear capes, not all monsters are tall beasts that eat children ;-).
What I like in the game (at least what I tried to do) is you see the distance between what you do and what happens. I mean, you only buy stuff, sell stuff, make some investments. Those concepts are classics and can apply to anything, like an industry of french fries. But as you know history, you know you're organizing violence and pain. That's the concept of banality of evil. Here, you only do what society encourage you to do, and, in a capitalist society (I admit, it's always hard to talk about capitalist society before 1700-1800, but concepts were already here : sacralization of private property, society organized in class, ...) you're encouraged to maximize your profit, no matter what you do for that. It represents in the game the reward you're talking of :-).
Note that it's also a criticism about big management structure and hierarchy, because you have people giving orders (in the game, the player) and people following orders (working in boats, in plantations, ...) but nobody has the big picture and can really understand what happens (and people who can are too far away from what happens to give a shit about it).
It's very interesting you wanted to play game about slavery, I was asking myself how you may have discover the game when I saw I had a comment (almost nobody played on Itch.io, I posted the game on Newgrounds and Kongregate, there were more players).
Note, I don't really like educational games and I don't wanted to be moralist, I mean, I wanted to be "raw", not say player what to think, etc... But what I hope is some people will be curious by playing, ask themselves some questions about what happens in the game and search what is "Triangular Trade" for example, which can lead to good thinking.
That's very awesome you made a very complete and interesting comment about what you felt while playing, thank you again !
I released Slavery Triangular Trade few years ago, now I'm freelance and work on developing indie games with a friend, we are Spirkop, here is our Twitter : https://twitter.com/SpirkopGames/ . We released 2 small games on web platforms (Kongregate, Armorgames), but they don't have any strong politics stuff in them like this game. Of course, we hope we'll able to include strong political content in our next games, but now we focus on being able to live from game development. Our next game will be an electric grid management game. We'll probably add little moral choices, but still nothing strong.
Have a nice day !
Wow thanks for this thorough response! I think the context of it being a game made for a "You are the monster" game jam is super important for everyone experiencing this game, along with your analysis on colonization. And I think the mentality of "Not all heroes wear capes, not all monsters are tall beasts that eat children" is true and it is a worthy challenge to use as a basis for a game.
I see that the comments sections on kongregate and newgrounds seem oblivious to this intent (with some noticeable eagerness to shift the blame to African people) - but this is truly territory that games have not yet had many real successes in exploring so I appreciate your attempt, and I am wondering about ways this approach could be tweaked to have players experience this "not all monsters are beasts" theme.
I agree that any approach that comes off as "moralizing" or "educational" will be ineffective, but I'd say that is more a matter of making the experience feel whole rather than contrived.. All games have values and lessons that the player learns intuitively through playing them, although sometimes those values are very simple, like "everyone is out to kill you, and you need speed and quick reactions to survive." To tackle a more nuanced topic like this one requires a different approach.
I suspect one method would be a game where you are involved in intercontinental trade, and you start out with more simple forms of cargo, but are placed in a position where there is a demand for human beings. In such a case, the player would get to feel that point where they have to deal with the fact that the skills they have honed for a simple business purpose, is becoming more intertwined with moral considerations.
Or, like Papers Please, you play a role that is way more administrative - like tracking incoming and outgoing products. What I love about that game is in the act of playing it you get to exercise moral agency, but it's always at some kind of cost. Morality in the construct of larger forces at play, of the watchful eye of a fascist and institution.
What is great about that, is it enables the player to maintain their personal morality, while taking the moral considerations seriously.
This makes me want to take some time and document games that successfully approach morality without a contrived, "moralizing" approach... I'm sure it's a fairly short list.
Thanks for the notes on how France views colonization - particularly the comment on how there have been movements to highlight the "positive aspect of colonization" - that hit me deeply, as even if it goes unspoken, I feel like that mentality is very much alive in America. Being able to effectively break through the defensiveness around racial shame, is the only way to heal it. This is something I hope video games can play a role with.. We'll see if that ever pans out!